


Baffa Day

by aesc, sheafrotherdon



Series: A Farm in Iowa 'Verse [10]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-15
Updated: 2008-06-15
Packaged: 2017-10-11 22:02:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/117580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aesc/pseuds/aesc, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheafrotherdon/pseuds/sheafrotherdon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The pasture barely ripples when Sunday steals quietly toward the farm that weekend, a mere breath of breeze setting the winter-dry grasses to some bend-and-quiver dance. The nights are still cool with the memory of winter. Something burrows in the stubble from last year's corn, but the fields are mostly silent, the chickens still asleep – only the creek whispers into the quiet, as if irrepressibly glad to be moving again after a season spent as ice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baffa Day

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by Dogeared. For everyone whose father is of a more unconventional kind.

The pasture barely ripples when Sunday steals quietly toward the farm that weekend, a mere breath of breeze setting the winter-dry grasses to some bend-and-quiver dance. The nights are still cool with the memory of winter. Something burrows in the stubble from last year's corn, but the fields are mostly silent, the chickens still asleep – only the creek whispers into the quiet, as if irrepressibly glad to be moving again after a season spent as ice.

Dawn is slow, tentative, even lazy, stretching out from the horizon with considerable care. The sun's barely managed to wash the world grey when John wakes with a start, summoned up from the depths of his warm, bundled slumber by the brash, piercing yell of his far-too-energetic son.

"MERRRRRRY BAFFA DAAAAAAAAAAAAY!" Finn shouts, right in John's ear.

John makes a noise more akin to gurgling than language, and valiantly stifles the cursing that speeds to his tongue. "Narrghh," he manages.

Rodney finds words much more quickly. "FINNEGAN MEREDITH JONATHAN JEAN CALEB MADDIE BROWN SHEPPARD MCKAY," Rodney offers – creatively, John thinks, since only one of those names is right – "We agreed on _later_. _After_ my coffee."

"Daddy, you's slow. I hafta wait _ages_ , already" Finn shoots back. "We start _now_."

Rodney whines pitifully, as though his waking energy was expelled with every family name he could summon.

"Daddy, c' _moooon_ ," Finn says, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "I help! I can go now! I run!" And sure enough he tears from the room and clatters down the stairs, sets Burp to barking in the kitchen below.

"Nuh?" John asks, rolling over to peer at Rodney.

"DADDY IS TIME," Finn yells from downstairs, where Burp's barks have changed to excited yips.

Rodney sighs. "He – with – since _last_ year," he explains. "You need one too and he. So." He waves a hand.

John wonders if the problem is that he's 85% asleep, or Rodney's 98% pre-verbal and lacking caffeine.

"I'll get coffee," Rodney groans. "Then. With. Explain."

"Buh," John agrees, and buries his head in his pillow, happy to let Rodney figure out what madness has possessed their child. Sleep comes quickly, having never really left, and so it's only with Herculean effort that John can open his eyes when he finds himself being poked insistently in the face and, once or twice, in the ear.

"Baffaaaaa, wake uuuuuup" Finn sing-songs at a pitch that John suspects will melt his brain if he tries to ignore it for more than two seconds.

He does the thing with his eyebrows that sometimes helps him get his eyelids unglued and tries to locate his voice box. "Huh?"

"BREKFIST!" And okay, there goes one eardrum. John blinks at the ceiling, admits strategic defeat, pushes himself up onto his elbows and wriggles back against his pillows, leaning against the headboard of the bed. He scrubs his hands over his face and hopes that whatever holiday it is, it isn't celebrated by burning down the house, since something smells distinctly charred.

"Did you – " But he doesn't have chance to say more, not considering the way Finn's scrambling over to Rodney's side of the bed, kneeling on the rumpled bedclothes and making impatient grabby hands toward Rodney, who's – "Hi, Rodney," – helping him set a tray on John's blanketed lap. John studies the singed toast, bowl of Cheerios, strawberries, and gigantic mug of coffee for several moments before he realizes he's being served breakfast in bed. "Uh, thanks?" he says with hesitant wonder, and he blinks when Finn claps his hands with glee.

Rodney grabs the coffee mug and takes a huge gulp before setting it back. "Well?" he asks. "Aren't you going to eat?" And he mimes picking up a spoon and putting it to his mouth, an act that makes John snort, but he does as he's told, eats a very soggy mouthful of Cheerios as if it's delicious and once he swallows he asks "What's the occasion?"

"BAFFA DAY!" Finn shrieks, and bounces so the milk almost sloshes out of John's bowl. "MER' BAFFA DAY!" and John looks up at Rodney, who has his arms crossed, seemingly torn between affection and embarrassment.

 _Baffa Day?_ John mouths.

Rodney waves a hand. "He was asking, you see, why there was no Baffa Day since there's Father's Day, and I tried to explain that Father's Day applied to both of us, that Baffa was Finn-speak for Dad, Daddy, Father, etc, but, well, he wasn't at all convinced, and insisted there should be Baffa Day all on its own. Which. Is, you know. Today."

John blinks, needing a moment to process the little-kid logic behind the honor of being served burned toast at not-even 6am on a random Sunday morning. He's hyper-aware of Finn grinning madly at him, supervising every soggy chew, so he swallows his cereal (plus something alien he doesn't want to examine too closely) says, " _Jumper_. Thanks, buddy."

Finn flops over onto his back in paroxysms of joy and wriggles, squeaking happily. "There's more laters!"

"More," John says slowly, eyeing Rodney, who's trying to edge toward the coffee mug on John's lap. "You gonna tell me what that is?" He smacks Rodney's hand.

Finn shakes his head, grinning. "SURPRISE!" he shouts, and convulses in a way that usually has Rodney making anxious sounds about epilepsy. But this time he doesn't; he just watches with his odd, crooked grin as Finn vaults off the bed, hits the floor and takes off like a shot. "Card!" Finn shouts from down the hall, and Rodney shrugs.

"You try telling a McKay not to do something," he says, as if John had protested, and under cover of kissing John's temple swipes the coffee mug from the tray.

"I'm gonna report you to the Baffa Day police," John says, waving his spoon as Rodney backs away from the bed and heads toward the door.

"I'd like to see them try to catch me!" Rodney snorts, clomp-clomp-clomping down the stairs. "I'm just going to refill it," he yells. "Keep your pants on your entirely too-skinny butt."

"I'm not wearing pants!" John yells after him, continuing to eat the Cheerios even though no one's making him. It's a declaration he regrets when he hears Finn yell from his room, "PENISSAURUS! RARRR!"

John doesn't even want to know.

Finn's footsteps come racing back, and there's just enough time for John to wonder if he's going to have Cheerios and milk splattered on his chest before Finn scrambles over him again, brandishing a big piece of blue construction paper, decorated with exuberant finger-paint swirls.

"CARD!" Finn announces.

John wipes his hands on his t-shirt and takes the card, examines the painting, begins, in the weave and swoop of finger-paints to grasp what's going on, that Finn wanted him to have a _Day_. "You must have," – he clears his throat, struggling clumsily to take in the affection Finn gives so freely – "taken a long time to do this," he murmurs fondly.

"ONE WHOLE DAY," Finn says, and helps John open the card, pointing madly at all the glitter spots inside, the handful of raw macaroni, the marker pen scribble below Rodney's neat print. "To Baffa: Happy Baffa Day! Love [indecipherable, artistic mess]." John rubs his knuckles over his sternum – something feels as though it's stuck inside him, warm and disabling, radiating heat. He's pretty sure it's not Cheerios.

"Stars!" Finn says, gesturing to the blotches of glitter; John wonders how much ended up on Finn if this much ended up on the paper. "And Daddy wroted this, but I did the rest." He goes on to explicate the rest of the painting, something John only half-hears around the effort of relearning how to breathe.

"You are the best Jumper in the whole world," John says eventually, hauling Finn in and kissing the top of his head, making Finn wriggle and laugh, a regular squirming miracle. "Wanna eat my toast? Daddy's bringing more coffee."

"YOUR toast," Finn informs him, and presses himself up close, going loose-limbed with satisfaction. "Daddy says toasts is for _occashins_. Is Baffa's Day toast."

"Okay," John says, ducking his head in obedience to that kind of order, and munches obediently as Rodney reappears, two coffee mugs in hand. Rodney pauses in the doorway, wearing a softness John only sees when Rodney isn't being careful; he blinks it away when he catches John looking.

"I chose a festive vessel for the occasion," he says, flustered, and John sees the red and green Christmas mug Laura inflicted on them with such relish the December before. "Finish eating your toast, you eat like a bird."

"Birds eat, I don't know, three times their bodyweight every day," John grins, making things up as he goes. He takes the mug Rodney's offering and slurps from it happily.

"And random statistics like that are exactly why this world is in the toilet-like state it's in," Rodney informs him, voice cantankerous despite the smile that he can't keep back when Finn beams up at him.

"Baffa was s'prised!" Finn says, punching the air with his fists, and almost taking out one of John's eyes.

"He was," Rodney says. He rocks back on his heels in satisfaction, and grins at John. John finds he's helpless to do anything but grin right back, and there's that pressure behind his sternum again, warm enough that he's stupid with it, has an itch in his fingers to grab Rodney's wrist and hold on until he's made himself understood. He scratches the back of his neck, leans toward his son.

"Know what would make Baffa Day even better?" he whispers. Finn's eyes grow big and he shakes his head. "If Daddy came back to bed. Farmpile!" John suggests.

"PILE!" Finn shrieks.

"TRAY!" Rodney yelps, moving with a speed usually associated with coffee and physics revelations to rescue tray and breakfast from a sudden, crushing death. John just grins at him, setting his cup aside, letting Rodney handle everything else with his usual, death-threat-muttering grace.

Finn's already wriggling under the covers. "PILE, Daddy."

"Yes, yes, pile," Rodney says, "and let me tell you, John Sheppard, if this tray falls, I will hold you personally – " The remainder of his sentence disappears in a yelp of surprise when John snags his wrist and yanks him down. "Sheppard!" he manages as he tries to regain his equilibrium, but anything else is lost when John kisses him warmly, smoothing a hand down his spine and chasing the taste of coffee with his tongue. The kiss breaks with them both pink-cheeked and breathless – John brushes their noses together murmurs, "thank you," and kisses him again.

"Kissin'!" Finn says, managing to sound intrigued, horrified and indignant all at once. He throws himself on Rodney before Rodney can slide off John, bounces a couple times so John's kidneys cry out in agony even as he chuckles, the sound forced out with his breath. He smiles helplessly against Rodney's mouth.

Rodney snorts, rolling his eyes, trying his damnedest not to laugh. "Off me, heathen!" he orders, making ineffectual grabs for Finn who wriggles out of the way each time.

"PILE," Finn says gleefully.

"Yes, yes," Rodney says, "I absolutely, pile, I'm on board, but I have a distinct preference for horizontal piles. Much comfier, especially since I think your Baffa's spleen is about to do something wholly inappropriate, loud, and garish."

"Hokayyy." The last bit of his drawn-out protestation is muffled by the covers as Finn turns an awkward somersault. Rodney arranges himself next to John, pulled in as if there's something gravitational about their bodies, legs tangled together with the covers pulled up high. Rodney's head bumps up against the underside of John's chin, while Finn worms his way across both of them, affectionately kneading them into place with the aid of elbows and knees.

"Oooof," Finn says, wriggling about, getting comfortable. "Big mornings." He yawns. "And is so much to do." He rubs his nose on Rodney's t-shirt.

"Maybe we should rest first," John suggests, the coffee not quite enough to make up for the early hour and Rodney's warm body and the slow, reluctant slide of Finn's hyperactivity into somnolence. "Just for a bit." He rubs his nose against the crown of Rodney's head.

"God, yes," Rodney says wistfully. "6am. He absolutely did not get that from me."

John nods, too sleepy to deflect guilt elsewhere. He drifts on some lazy tide, the slow roll of his breath and Rodney's, Finn fingers clutching Rodney's t-shirt, hears "along with the tendency towards nudity which, while desirable in some circumstances, is not in . . . in others . . . " and smiles.


End file.
